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Our Children, Our Future
Millions of children are on the move across international borders — fleeing violence and conflict, disaster or poverty, in pursuit of a better life. Hundreds of thousands move on their own. When they encounter few opportunities to move legally, children resort to dangerous routes and engage smugglers to help them cross borders.

Serious gaps in the laws, policies and services meant to protect children on the move further leave them bereft of protection and care. Deprived, unprotected and often alone, children on the move can become easy prey for traffickers and others who abuse and exploit them. Many children move alone and face particularly grave risks. In parts of the world, the number of children moving on their own has skyrocketed. On the dangerous central Mediterranean Sea passage from North Africa to Europe, 92 percent of children who arrived in Italy in 2016 and the first two months of 2017 were unaccompanied, up from 75 percent in 2015.

At least 300 000 unaccompanied and separated children moving across borders were registered in 80 countries in 2015-2016 — a near fivefold increase from 66 000 in 2010–2011. The total number of unaccompanied and separated children on the move worldwide is likely much higher. Specific reasons motivate children to undertake journeys alone. Many seek to reunite with family members already abroad. Others pursue their families’ aspirations for this generation to have a better life. Perceptions of the potential benefits of children moving, especially to certain destinations, filter through social networks. Other factors include family breakdown, domestic violence, child marriage and forced conscription.

Without safe and legal pathways, children’s journeys are rife with risk and exploitation. Whatever their motivation, children often find few opportunities to move legally. Family reunification, humanitarian visas, refugee resettlement spots, and work or study visas are out of reach for most. But barriers to legal migration do not stop people from moving, they only push them underground. Wherever families and children desperate to move encounter barriers, smuggling in human beings thrives. Smugglers range from people helping others in need for a fee to organised criminal networks that deliver children into hazardous and exploitative

Once children and families place their fates in the hands of smugglers, the transaction can readily take a turn towards abuse or exploitation — especially when children and families incur debts to pay smugglers’ fees. Europol estimates that 20 percent of suspected smugglers on their radar have ties to human trafficking — they help children cross borders, only to sell them into exploitation, sometimes akin to contemporary forms of slavery. Some routes are particularly rife with risks. In a recent International Organisation for Migration survey, over three-quarters of 1 600 children aged 14–17, who arrived in Italy via the central Mediterranean route reported experiences such as being held against their will or being forced to work without pay at some point during their journeys — indications that they may have been trafficked or otherwise exploited. Traffickers and other exploiters thrive especially where state institutions are weak, where organised crime abounds, and also where migrants become stuck and desperate. — Unicef.